


burn, baby, burn

by imposterhuman



Series: pepperony drabbles [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awesome Pepper Potts, BAMF Pepper Potts, Extremis Pepper Potts, F/M, Iron Man 3 Compliant, Pepper Potts Feels, Pepperony - Freeform, Protective Pepper Potts, Tony Feels, in this essay I will, the fandom as a whole is sleeping on my queen pepper potts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 06:23:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18244172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imposterhuman/pseuds/imposterhuman
Summary: Pepper fell.She fell some two hundred feet into roaring flames, but she didn’t die. She hit the ground hard with a pain like nothing she’d ever felt, but she didn’t die. Her bones knit themselves back together, skin glowing orange as her body rebuilt itself. Extremis flared in her core, fixing her even as she burned.





	burn, baby, burn

**Author's Note:**

> one-word prompt: extremis
> 
> i just love pepper potts, what else needs to be said?
> 
> enjoy!

Pepper fell.

 

She reached for Tony’s hand but missed, the shifting of the rubble she was trapped on throwing off her aim. 

 

She fell some two hundred feet into roaring flames, and her last thought was of Tony’s anguished scream.

 

Except, she didn’t die. She hit the ground hard with a pain like nothing she’d ever felt, but she didn’t die. Her bones knit themselves back together, skin glowing orange as her body rebuilt itself. Extremis flared in her core, healing burns as they appeared, fixing her even as she burned.

 

(It was an addictive feeling, Extremis. She felt stronger than she ever had, power at her fingertips that was near impossible to defend against. Every hurt was soothed by fire, forging her into something better than she was. She stood, lighter than ever, and stalked out of the flames like an avenging angel.)

 

The fire barely licked her skin before it was clear again. The flames felt like caresses on her body, like brushes of feathers instead of tendrils of pain.

 

She wondered, absently, in the part of her mind that wasn’t hyperfocused on her new power, if Tony felt as untouchable as she did in his suits, if that was why he couldn’t give them up. She understood, now, why. The power was addictive.

 

She didn’t just feel powerful, though. She felt  _ safe _ . No one could bomb her house, could attack her, not anymore. Not when she had fire in her palms and in her soul. The heat was comforting where it burned, reminding her that she wasn’t powerless, she wasn’t helpless. She was strong, and that was safety.

 

The way out of the flames was blocked by metal and debris. Easily, she melted it with blistering hands that stung only for an instant. Nothing could stand in her way. Logically, she knew that she should have been freaking out, but the adrenaline high was soothing her panic (she didn’t doubt that as soon as it wore off, she’d collapse in a ball and scream for a few hours). She soldiered on, though, through superheated metal and blazing flames.

 

She finally got out of the fires, where she could breathe and not have embers in her lungs, only to see Killian glowing red-hot, skin blackening and cracking under the heat. 

 

Her vision tunneled.  _ He  _ did this to her, made her something other than she was.  _ He  _ strapped her down, forced Extremis into unwilling veins, made her his guinea pig. And for what? Revenge? Pepper would show him revenge.

 

He was standing over Tony, who was suitless and suitably terrified. 

 

“I am the Mandarin!” he shouted, raising his hands to strike.

 

Pepper was faster. She picked up a pole, something large and heavy, and  _ swung _ . Killian went flying off into a container, hitting it with an impact that looked painful. She almost smiled at that; Extremis had been painful, too. 

 

Tony, instead of looking relieved, looked frantic. “JARVIS,” he called. “Subject at my twelve o’clock is not a target, disengage!”

 

The suit didn’t stop, but Pepper was ready. She dodged the repulsor blast with ease borne from flame-filled limbs and spun away, tracking the suit’s trajectory as it came back down. She turned towards Tony, gave him a glare for good measure, and sprinted at him.

 

“Oh, what, are you mad at me?” he asked. She didn’t respond, too busy using the debris next to him as a springboard, propelling herself upwards and putting one heated hand through the reactor of the empty suit. She flipped midair, twisting to land in Tony’s signature pose, the suit a dead weight on the ground in front of her. 

 

Tony stared at Pepper in something like wonder, but she still didn’t respond. She wasn’t done. Her arm cut through the metal of the suit like butter, letting her break it at the shoulder and slide her hand into the gauntlet. 

 

Killian ran at her again and she punched him away. He looked inhuman, all glowing bones and peeling flesh (Pepper spared a moment to hope she didn’t look like that, too. It was terrifying. He looked like a demon from the depths of hell). 

 

Pepper wished she could say that she felt something when he hit the ground, something other than dark satisfaction. He hurt her, hurt  _ Tony _ , and people who did that didn’t tend to live very long. She remembered Obadiah when she looked at Killian and felt no mercy.

 

Behind her, Tony cheered her on with a soft  _ whoo _ . She smiled in spite of herself, in spite of everything that was happening that was  _ not  _ smile-worthy. She kicked a bomb with her bare feet in Killian’s direction, blasting it with a repulsor.

 

The explosion rattled her bones. The combined force of one of Tony’s bombs and Killian’s Extremis-fueled detonation was enough to send her stumbling, the heat prickling her skin for milliseconds. She didn’t smile in satisfaction or take pleasure in her victory over the man who forced bombs under her skin. She felt hollow, instead, empty but for fire.

 

Pepper panted, adrenaline fading fast as reality hit her like a brick.  

 

“Honey,” Tony called from behind her, cautiously but not fearfully (she didn’t know what she would have done if he were scared of her. She didn’t know if she could have handled it).

 

She turned like a spooked animal, eyes wide. “Oh my god,” she breathed. “That was really violent.”

 

“You just scared the devil out of me,” he said, eyes desperately taking her in like it was the last time he’d see her. “I thought you were-”

 

“I was dead. Why, because I fell two hundred feet?” she teased on reflex. Tony looked stunned speechless, visibly coming up with and discarding responses. “Who’s the hot mess now?”

 

He smirked, filled with relief and something she couldn’t quite place. “Still debatable,” he said. “Probably tipping your way a little bit. Why don’t you dress like this at home? Hmm, sports bra, the whole deal.”

 

She recognized his deflection for what it was and let him have it with only an unimpressed look thrown his way. “You know,” she said, looking down at her arm. “I think I understand why you don’t want to give up the suits. What am I going to complain about now?”

 

Tony strode towards her on unsteady legs. “Well, it’s me,” he offered. “You’ll think of something.”

 

He reached for her, but she threw herself backwards. “No, no, don’t touch me,” Pepper cried. “I’m going to burn you!” She couldn’t stand the thought of hurting Tony, of his skin burning like hers because of her.

 

“No, don’t worry about it,” he said, touching her arm gently, reverently. “You’re fine. Not hot.”

 

She stared in wonder for a moment, then met his eyes. The panic was hitting her hard. “Am I going to be okay?” her voice was wobbly, she knew.

 

“No,” Tony pursed his lips. She panicked for a moment before he continued. “You're in a relationship with me. Everything will never be okay.” He smiled softly, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. She almost laughed at the sheer domesticity of it; surrounded by flame and ruin and death, Tony was fixing her hair like he did before meetings. “But I think I can figure this out, yeah. I almost had this 20 years ago when I was drunk. I think I can get you better. That's what I do. I fix stuff.”

 

Pepper pulled him close, resting her chin on his shoulder. He was still rambling, meaningless words designed to soothe her. They had more to talk about, she knew, serious words that had to be said. There would likely be yelling and crying by both of them. Extremis was still boiling in her blood, simmering under her skin and begging to be let out, but it didn’t matter right then. 

 

Extremis had nothing on being held by the love of her life.

**Author's Note:**

> the "who's the hot mess now" line always gets me
> 
> hope you liked it! 
> 
> leave me comments and kudos and i will spare you in my inevitable world domination scheme


End file.
